I told them I'm not going to let Vietnam go the way of China. I told them to go back and tell those generals in Saigon that Lyndon... Johnson intends to stand by our word, but by God, I want something for my money. I want 'em to get off their butts and get out in those jungles and whip hell out of some Communists. And then I want 'em to leave me alone, because I've got some bigger things to do right here at home.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

We have heard that a few days after this, when the Provincetown Bank was robbed, speedy emissaries from Provincetown made particul...ar inquiries concerning us at this lighthouse. Indeed, they traced us all the way down the Cape, and concluded that we came by this unusual route down the back side and on foot in order that we might discover a way to get off with our booty when we had committed the robbery. The Cape is so long and narrow, and so bare withal, that it is well-nigh impossible for a stranger to visit it without the knowledge of its inhabitants generally, unless he is wrecked on to it in the night. So, when this robbery occurred, all their suspicions seem to have at once centered on us two travelers who had just passed down it. If we had not chanced to leave the Cape so soon, we should probably have been arrested. The real robbers were two young men from Worcester County who traveled with a centre-bit, and are said to have done their work very neatly. But the only bank that we pried into was the great Cape Cod sand-bank, and we robbed it only of an old French crown piece, some shells and pebbles, and the materials of this story.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

What children learn from punishment is that might makes right. When they are old and strong enough, they will try to get their own... back; thus many children punish their parents by acting in ways distressing to them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

After decades of unappreciated drudgery, American women just don't do housework any more--that is, beyond the minimum that is requ...ired in order to clear a path from the bedroom to the front door so they can get off to work in the mourning.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

For, the expectation of gratitude is mean, and is continually punished by the total insensibility of the obliged person. It is a g...reat happiness to get off without injury and heart-burning, from one who has had the ill luck to be served by you. It is a very onerous business, this being served, and the debtor naturally wishes to give you a slap.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Diddy-Wah-Diddy ... is a place of no work and no worry for man or beast. The road to it is so crooked that a mule pulling a load o...f fodder can eat off the back of the wagon as he plods along. All curbstones are chairs, and all food is already cooked. Baked chickens and sweet potato pies, with convenient knives and forks, drift along crying, 'Eat me! Eat me!'LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Consider a man riding a bicycle. Whoever he is, we can say three things about him. We know he got on the bicycle and started to mo...ve. We know that at some point he will stop and get off. Most important of all, we know that if at any point between the beginning and the end of his journey he stops moving and does not get off the bicycle he will fall off it. That is a metaphor for the journey through life of any living thing, and I think of any society of living things.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Brigid: You're not ...Sam Spade: Yes, angel. I'm gonna send you over. But chances are you'll get off with life. That means i...f you're a good girl you'll get out in twenty years. I'll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I'll always remember you.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »